The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog
by Lapua Magnum
Summary: AU: In which the nogitsune has been around longer than we thought.


A/N: Gilles Garnier is real, otherwise known as the Werewolf of Dole. Apparently he is raving mad and eats people. Hence the unclear narrative.

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Gilles Garnier wandered the streets of Dole, the rush of packed humanity slithering past like wet silk. He laughs to himself, alone, simply because there was no one else; he doesn't want anyone else. He lies to himself because he could, staunch the blood under his eyes, always rushing headlong without a plan. There is madness in his voice, muffled by drunks and chatterings of gentlemen in old suits.

There is divine comedy in an Alpha who refuses a pack. Even so, he obsessively marks the calendar- January 18, 1574. He is Frankenstein, except with someone else's monster, snarling, clean-cut fur and flesh. The monster howls and it bites, red eyes of a rat, and he feels like he was set on fire. Gilles screams and suddenly he has a knife in his hand-

He looks into a shop mirror and the monster grins back in return. The story of the Little Red Riding Hood, innocent and miniscule, only to reveal it was all a funny trick; Surprise! The wolf lifts back its hood, baring canines in its mouth and claws in a basket. His reflection twists back in horror, and he visibly recoils, knocking into another man-

He apologises because it was expected, pulls away because it was expected. He didn't expect traction in his steps, the inhuman tug in his sleeve and the quicksilver-

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Piccolet Argent stands in front of his burning home, red in his hands, red in his blade.

The madness is infectious and the wolf hangs its jaw in a parody of a smile, cut through with savage silver. Once upon a time, it was given to a man named Gilles Garnier. Truly it was divine comedy, history repeating itself in a loop. Gilles was dead and it wasn't fair. Piccolet roared at the gods to return his wife and children. The monster was slain and his family wasn't going to come back to him. Fairytales were meant to end with a happily ever after and it isn't fair at all. He weeps because loneliness is just as infectious as madness, and he curses because he never done anything to deserve it.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. He retrieves his knife, sampling chaos like drops of fine wine.

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Noshiko imagines that she would make a horrible mother.

She lies on her back, paralyzed and she imagines marrying in a dirty chapel off the beaten track. She dreams of a home where she didn't need to steal to survive and she smiles because she thinks she would have been bored. Noshiko is kitsune and she never settles in a place long enough to call home. Tricksters rarely find their roots.

Noshiko is centuries old and she understands that she will fall in love again. Bullets in her gut, she fears death more than she loves. She muses that if she lives through this, she should marry and have children because she realizes now that she isn't immortal. Noshiko is afraid and between laboured breaths, she assumes this is the most alive she had ever felt in her entire life. Sometimes, she thinks that a kitsune lives too long. Madness is infectious, even more so than loneliness and she thinks she's the maddest she has ever been. She is vengeful for a dead man and she understands lying to herself. She is kitsune and their kind never dies easy.

She stares at the ceiling of the truck like she could burn through the roof with her mind alone. Noshiko summons the nogitsune because she doesn't want to die and she wishes the people who shot her to die horrifying deaths. The kitsune and the nogitsune are similar in that they are both stubborn and cunning, and she choked on her own breath when she felt the demon twitch faintly in return.

There can only be one nogitsune in a territory at any given time. Noshiko wasn't sure which was more terrifying; the fact that she was on her own or that there was already a nogitsune in the camp before. She struggled in vain as the soldiers loaded up the bodies like dominoes and lit her up on fire.

Meanwhile, the doctor back in the camp felt a quiet thump within the edifices in his head and shrugged noncommittally. He felt sated from the chaos already and it was high time he moved on.

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Paige began to understand why Rachel recommended her to practice playing in the music room. The acoustics were absolutely brilliant here. On hindsight though, she could just simply go home to practice, considering how the boys were notorious for messing around in the hallway outside. Paige disliked noise and she furrowed her brow, wondering why she agreed anyways. It wasn't like her to simply take to suggestions. Rachel was insisted though, with her quicksilver eyes and dark brown hair.

(To be perfectly honest, she wasn't even sure if Rachel is even a student in the school. She really did look a bit too old to be in high school)

So she lifted her bow and dragged the notes across her instrument, just in time for the bantering cacophony outside to start.

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Claudia was born on a Tuesday. She hated Tuesdays. Nothing ever happened on Tuesdays.

Claudia in her white frock splayed out like fairy wings, shards of grass and topsoil sticking to her underfoot, methodically pulled off the spider's legs one by one. Poor Claudia, her mother, Rachel died from a brain aneurysm. They passed off her nonchalance as a coping mechanism, thinking perhaps it was better this way.

Claudia the beautiful. Claudia the brilliant. Claudia the cold. Claudia the cruel. A nogitsune doesn't have a permanent 900 year old body, unyielding, constant and recognisable. Reincarnation isn't as tricky for the nogitsune as it is for humans. Once Claudia gets old enough, she will be charming, sweet and submissive. She will marry a man and have an only child. When he or she gets old enough, the memories will simply pass on and this body will die. The ouroborous eats its own tail and recycles anew.

Therefore when Claudia meets Stilinski, beer stinking through his shirt in an epic battle between college fratboys, she smiles. And she charms. And the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

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Scott McCall glances around cautiously, palms sweaty from exercise. He could have sworn that he heard something, and it reminds him to tread carefully. Adrenaline pumping through his veins. Just him, the bat versus the rest of the world.

At that very moment, Stiles dipped upside down from the roof. Scott would be the last to admit that he screamed like a little girl.

"Stiles! What the hell are you doing?" he huffs, recovering from his almost heart attack.

"You weren't answering your phone" he answers, looking quizzically, "Why do you have a bat?"

"I thought you were a predator."

"A predator?" Stiles scoffs, "Look I know it's late but you've gotta hear this. So my dad left 20 minutes ago. Dispatch called. They are bringing in every officer from the Beacon department and even state police. Two joggers found a body in the woods."

"A dead body?" Scott asks

"No" Stiles answers deadpanned, "A body of water. Yes dumbass a dead body."

"Were they like murdered?"

"Nobody knows yet" Stiles pauses, "Just that there's a girl. Probably in her 20's."

"But hold on" Scott furrows, "If they found the body, then what are they looking for?"

Stiles sniffs "That's the best part" he drags for dramatic effect, "They only found half. We're going"

He grins like a child with a shiny new toy. This is going to be _delicious_.


End file.
